


Prodigal Son

by IndigoStarblaster



Series: Prodigal Son 'Verse [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: F/M, Tony Stark (age 17 to 20), canonical offstage deaths, minor original characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoStarblaster/pseuds/IndigoStarblaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the biographical review that occurs early on in <em>Iron Man</em>, the announcer uses the phrase "the prodigal son returns" to set up Tony Stark being named CEO of Stark Industries at the age of 21. This story describes the period between his parents' death and his appointment as CEO.  </p><p>"Obie. I'm not saying I want to run the company. I just, just let me do some work. Give me a lab. Let me have a desk in the corner of someone else's lab.</p><p>"I'm tired of being useless."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prodigal Son

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Google in general and Wikipedia in particular for anything in this story which has anything even close to a factual basis. Much gratitude to Rebecca for both prompt and beta.

_You can't run forever, Tony._

In memory, his voice is kind and firm, a little gravelly, his hand a warm presence on Tony's shoulder. The memory is a comfort in the dark behind his closed eyelids. He opens his eyes. The sun has been up for hours. It's a bright day, endless blue sky, brilliant blue pool, white marble steps and terraces, bronzed bodies of indeterminate age draped over patio furniture, the wreckage of dropped and smashed bottles and glassware and trays of half-eaten hors d'oeuvres littered around them. The household staff, modestly dressed in black, are picking their way through the mess, tidying, sweeping, gently shaking the bodies, propping them up in sitting position with something to rehydrate them, or guiding them indoors to comfortable beds with linen sheets. There is a girl about his age wrapped around his legs, her head against his stomach, eyes closed, wearing a tiny golden bikini bottom and nothing else, beautiful little breasts, tumbled brown hair, what was her name? Father some kind of merchant banker in London or Dubai, she invited him to this party but it isn't her house. Their host is some old fart, a lecher who breathed heavily while watching them make out by the pool. He'd said, _Stay as long as you like._ That was two days ago.

Tony's head hurts, his tongue tastes disgusting. He wants to throw up but it'd be a shame to make even more of a mess for the silent, efficient men and women who are putting up with so much of their shit. He eases the girl's head off his stomach, which helps, manages to untangle himself without waking her. No idea where his shirt is, but he finds his jeans crumpled beside them, wallet still tucked in the back pocket.

Behind his eyelids he feels the hand on his shoulder again, hears the voice. _You can always come home, Tony. Whenever you're ready, we'll be here._

Not New York, Tony thinks. He can't handle New York. The corporate offices are in New York, but there is a research facility in California. Obie travels between all the sites regularly, has a house or apartment within fifteen minutes of all the major ones. He'll go to California. He looks around for a phone he can use, wincing at the too-strong sunlight drenching everything.

Tony Stark is 20 years old and sick of running away.

***

He had been home barely a week, still had half his things in boxes. The important stuff was all unpacked, though, he'd come in the door and headed straight down to the workshop to unpack Dummy, previously shipped by air. Cutting-edge — hell, breakthrough — AI, self-motivated, capable of learning, with visual, sonic and pressure sensor input, articulated arm for manipulation, wheels for movement. Built for Concepts in Robotics, an undergraduate course,  but they'd conferred at his oral defence and pretty much awarded him a doctorate on the spot.  Accidentally named in a moment of exasperated affection; it stuck and he didn't want to reprogram him manually. Tony lounged back, idly fiddling with a screwdriver, watching Dummy explore, calling out data every time the gangly robot tilted the inbuilt camera like a toddler asking a question. "Chair. Lamp. Boba Fett action figure. Another chair." He would be graduating summa cum laude in two days.

He practiced in his head: "So. Dad. Am I good enough to work for Stark Industries?" He meant the tone to be sarcastic. He was pretty sure he was supposed to take over the company someday, although dad had never actually said so. He hadn't seen his parents since Christmas, they'd been in Washington DC all week, so only the household staff were there to welcome him home. Tony thought maybe he'd ask dad his sarcastic question on their way back from convocation. Assuming dad was going. Mom would be there, anyway, if dad didn't need her on his arm for a political dinner or something. "Table. Pen. Tablet. Coffee mug." He flipped the screwdriver in the air, tried to catch it and missed. It clattered to the floor, rolled in a crazy circle, and Dummy cocked the camera at it. "Screwdriver."

Intercom. "Tony. Phone call for you from Mr. Stane."

"Put it on speaker." Dad's business partner and best friend. Probably calling to congratulate him. "Hi, uncle Obie."

"Tony." Somber. Not right. "I'm sorry to be doing this by phone. There's been an accident. Your mom and dad were in a car accident, in Washington. "

Tony went cold. "Are they, are they ok?" _In hospital, really shaken up, under observation…_

"There was nothing anyone could do. There was a… it was instantaneous. I'm sorry." Obie paused, but Tony was now a block of ice. Frozen inside and out. "I'm in Chicago. I'm going to fly to Washington now, to... To bring them home. I'll arrange everything. I'll try to see you tomorrow, ok?" Silence. "Tony?"

"Ok." Barely audible whisper. "End call." The room was silent except for the whirr of Dummy's servos as he moved to explore the bookshelf. "Dummy." Camera tilt, then the squeak of wheels as Dummy rolled close, nestled under Tony's hands. Tony gripped convulsively. _Mom and dad. Mom and dad are dead._

Time faded in and out. He saw in his peripheral vision the housekeeper, Mimi, putting down a tray. Maybe saying something about having to eat. Later, she came down again, said she was going to bed, that she would be right there if he needed her. Said apologetically that Mr. Stane had asked her to keep Tony home until he could get there, so she was locking all the doors and turning on the alarm system. Discreetly left.

He didn't know where he would go, anyway. He had been in boarding school since he was six, he knew no one in New York who didn't  live in the house or on the grounds. He stood, sat down restlessly, stood again. There was more than one way to escape. Dad had a stocked bar in practically every room of the house. Tony wandered from one to the other, scotch glass in hand, full, empty, full, empty...

He found himself at the door to dad's workshop, down the hall from his own, featureless except for the keypad lock. He had never been in there. Dad had a lot of secrets to keep. He sometimes came to Tony's space, when they were both home and dad had nothing more important to do. He would come see what Tony was working on, leaf through his notebook, commenting on where the documentation was a little lax, point out where Tony had missed something, always so obvious in retrospect.

Tony's hand hovered over the keypad. Fourteen-digit passcode. One hundred trillion possible combinations, and dad wasn't stupid enough to pick anything obvious. Tony tried anyway, combinations of birthdates, milestones in dad's life, crucial offensives of the Second World War, the values of pi, e and Euler's constant to 13 places... His vision blurred until he couldn't see the numbers under his fingers anymore, but he kept trying sequences by feel. Access denied, access denied, access denied.

Well. No surprise there.

***

When Tony lands at LAX, wearing borrowed shirt and shoes (the lecher's staff were experienced and prepared), he is greeted by one of Obie's regular drivers. "Mr. Stane is still at the office, but he's instructed me to take you home and set you up in the guest suite."

Tony feels like hell, dehydrated and exhausted from the  12-hour flight, but he's sick of staying in other people's guest suites. "Screw that. Take me to Mr. Stane's office." Tony half-anticipates resistance but the driver simply nods and phones ahead, probably to alert Obie's secretary.

When Tony arrives and is escorted to the top floor corner office, he takes a deep breath, ready to launch into his prepared spiel, but Obie is already up from his desk and walking towards Tony, a warm smile on his bearded face, arms out, wrapping Tony in a bear hug. "Tony. God, it's been ages."

Tony can't help it. He curls into the hug, his face against Obie's immaculately suited shoulder, the bigger man enfolding him completely. He tries to get back on message. "Hi, Obie, listen, I've been thinking—"

But Obie is already talking. "It's good to see you, kiddo. How was Milan? You called from Milan, right?" He stops, gives Tony an appraising look. "You look like you could use a sandwich. Come have lunch with me." Obie keeps his arm around Tony's shoulders as he steers Tony through glass-walled corridors and down stairways with steel cable banisters. "The cafeteria has just started making these great grilled panini, with chicken and avocado...  " Before Tony quite realizes it, he and Obie are sitting at a semi-secluded table, panini in hand, bottles of frappuccino in front of them. Tony takes a bite, and another, and realizes that he is actually a little hungry. And thirsty. Obie watches approvingly as Tony finishes off his panini and blended coffee, bites into his own sandwich with gusto. "What did I tell you? Nothing beats American-style Italian food. Do you want more?"

Tony takes a deep breath, pushes aside his empty plate. "Obie. I've been thinking. I want to come work for the company."

Obie finishes chewing. "Huh. Well." He takes his time wiping his hands and mouth, taking a sip of the frappuccino. "The problem is, Tony, I'm not sure what we can do with you."

Tony tries to keep his voice steady. "I have advanced degrees in computer science and mechanical engineering from MIT."

"Three years out of date. I don't need to tell you how fast the field moves."

"I've kept up. Done some work on my own."

"Is that so? Apprenticed yourself to freelance engineering gurus in between social engagements? Set up robotics labs in party towns across Europe and Asia, like some kind of jet-age Johnny Appleseed?"

"I've kept up with the literature and done some conceptual work on my own," Tony repeats doggedly. "I took a couple years off. I don't see what the big deal is."

"You cut a pretty wide swath during those years. Impaired driving, public intoxication, drug possession..."

"Those charges were all dropped..."

"And we have the legal bills to prove it." Obie sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose as though it pains him. "Tony. Please see it from my point of view. Even if you were some genius applicant off the street, this would make us think twice about hiring you. And you're not some safely anonymous nobody. Everyone knows who you are, who your dad was. Everyone and their dog has seen the tabloid pictures of you half-naked in Trafalgar Square. The company doesn't need this kind of notoriety. We're a weapons manufacturer. We live and die by government contracts. A whiff of scandal, any kind of scandal, can make a skittish politician drop us like a hot coal."

Tony is quiet for a moment. "What happened to 'you can always come home'?" He searches Obie's face, waits for an almost imperceptible flicker of acknowledgement before he continues. "Obie. I'm not saying I want to run the company. I just, just let me do some work. Give me a lab. Let me have a desk in the corner of someone else's lab.

"I'm tired of being useless." He means the line to be snarky and confident, but his voice breaks over the truth of it.

Obie slowly drums his fingers on the tabletop, finishes his drink, sets his napkin to one side. "Why don't I give you a tour? We never did make it out here last time, did we."

 _Last time._   Tony tries not to flinch, tries not to hope. "Sure." He stands when Obie stands, follows the older man out.

***

Hundreds had attended the double funeral. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff spoke about how much Howard and Maria had contributed to society, to America, how much they would be missed.  Afterwards, there were handshakes and murmured condolences and awkward hugs from people who had worked for or with Tony's father at the company or in the war, or for or with his mother at one non-profit or another. Tony didn't know any of them. (That night he saw the media footage. He looked small, younger than 17 in his brand new dark suit. In almost all the photos his head was bowed, the shock of dark hair hiding his eyes.) Obie had been at his side the whole time, graciously accepting all the expressions of sympathy so Tony didn't have to say a word, one hand on Tony's shoulder, giving him strength.

The next day, Obie came to the house. Tony was sitting on a bench in his workshop, picking up engine pieces, turning them over, putting them down again. He sensed rather than saw Obie coming to sit next to him on the bench. Tony half-nodded, didn't look up. "Your mom and dad named me as your guardian and trustee until you reach your majority, at the age of 21. I guess I should start by asking you, what were your plans, now that you've graduated?"

"I didn't really have any. I figured I'd talk to dad after convocation." Tony kept his eyes on the engine part before him. Turn. Turn again.

"Were you thinking about grad school? Going back for your doctorate?"

Tony shrugged. "They gave me a doctorate."

"My god, kiddo." Obie chuckled, gave Tony's shoulder a congratulatory squeeze. "You are amazing. Did your dad know?" When Tony didn't reply, Obie went on more gently,  "I don't know exactly what your dad — or your mom — wanted for you, but I know the company could sure use you. I could use you. And maybe a new challenge would be the right kind of distraction for you, right now. What do you think?"

Tony said nothing. He couldn't remember his dad ever sitting like this, with an arm around him. "Sure, uncle Obie," he said at last.

*

Tony lasted less than a week.

The plan had been for him to get an overview at corporate headquarters here in New York, head out to California to meet the staff at the company's largest research campus, tour one of the manufacturing sites, then return, specifically to the research coordination team where his father had spent most of his time. Tony dutifully showed up at corporate headquarters on the appointed day, but it all fell apart after that.  He couldn't handle it.

Couldn't handle reading accounting spreadsheets and corporate memos that were designed to obscure and mislead. Couldn't handle talking to senior directors whose response to his admittedly ignorant questions was to deflect him with more jargon, or to kiss his nepotically anointed ass with reassurances that all was as it should be.  Couldn't handle standard instructions to research staff like the one for the land-based weapons and munitions division that caught his eye: "Anti-personnel mines are to be designed to injure enemy combatants rather than kill in order to increase the logistical support burden (evacuation, medical) on the opposing force." (Tony felt his gut twist, tried not to think about the limbless and eyeless and other horrific implications.) Most of all, he couldn't handle looking all 'his' people in the eye, these people who had venerated Howard Stark and who now looked expectantly to Tony as the second coming, when Tony knew that he was not and never could be the man his father was.

Five days after starting at Stark Industries, Tony went to Obie and tendered his resignation. Obie was a little disappointed but understanding.

"I'm sorry, uncle Obie."

"It's okay, kiddo. I'm sorry if I pushed you a little hard. There's no rush. Come back when you're ready."

Tony didn't know what he was going to do next, but he got an email from an old classmate who had just started graduate work in plasma physics at Université Pierre et Marie Curie, inviting him to visit. Tony ended up staying in Paris for six months, learned to speak French, hung out in cafés and bistros, graduate student lounges and europop dance clubs. Someone invited him along on a jaunt to Venice, and then there was a trip to Glasgow, and a stint in Copenhagen. Christmas came and went. Tony celebrated his 18th birthday in Dubai and Obie flew out to meet him there for dinner.

"You look good, kiddo."

"Thanks, Obie." (Tony was an adult now.)

"You ready to come home yet?"

 _No._ "I'm… I'm not sure."

"You know, you can't run forever, Tony."

Back to Glasgow, then to London. Tony fell in with a slightly different crowd, fewer graduate students, more rich kids with nothing but time on their hands and ready access to illicit substances. Athens, Barcelona, Copenhagen again. There were a few incidents involving police, and someone from Legal flew out to post bail.

"Where's Obie?"

The lawyer raised an eyebrow, then reached into his briefcase and pulled out an American newspaper, turned to page 15. There was a grainy photo and caption.  He looked pointedly at Tony. Tony got it.

Tony tried to dial it back a bit. Dresden, Edinburgh. He turned 19, and Obie flew out again to have dinner with him. Over dessert, Obie said, with a touch of irritation for the first time, "You know, we could still really use you. Your dad left a lot of cryptic notes to himself, it would be helpful to have another genius around to try and decipher them."

Tony was unable to meet Obie's eyes. "Dad never talked to me about his work, Obie."

Frankfurt, Galway, Helsinki, Innsbruck, Jerez. Another incident, a bad one, it was truly stupid for him to be there but he honestly hadn't been involved, wrong place at the wrong time. Tony didn't even know how that got cleared up, no one posted bail, the police just opened the door, said nothing and averted their eyes as he walked out.

Karlstad. Tony thought maybe Obie would call to say Merry Christmas. He didn't. Tony wandered into the stacks of the local university, empty between semesters, idly browsed back issues of the _Journal of Engineering Physics and Thermophysics_ , _Communications of The ACM_ , _IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science_. The names of old classmates were listed here and there as co-authors.

Larisa. Tony turned 20. No phone call, no dinner. Tony celebrated by getting drunk. Milan.

Tony couldn't handle this anymore, either.

***

The tour is perfunctory but every floor looks the same anyway and Tony doesn't care how many conference rooms there are. What he wants to know is what will become of him, and Obie is obviously still thinking about it. While they are crossing some kind of common area between one set of offices and the next, Obie abruptly stops and calls out, "Alfred, can I talk to you for a minute?"

An older, dark-haired man looks up from where he is standing with two others in front of a whiteboard covered with equations and arrows, says something Tony can't hear to the others and starts to walk over. 

Obie says to Tony, "Give me a sec here," and goes to meet Alfred halfway.

Tony tries to look like he's not listening, and in fact is too far away to hear them, but he can't help but watch. Alfred frowns and starts to look exasperated, Obie shrugs in a conciliatory way. There is back and forth for a long minute and a half, and then the two of them walk back to Tony. Obie says, "Tony, this is Alfred Wang, director of research here. I've told him what you told me, and he's willing to talk to you about it. I'm going to leave this to you now." Obie claps his hand on Tony's back, and leaves.

Tony turns to Alfred, who asks bluntly, "Can you do anything useful?" and Tony realizes belatedly that this is a job interview and it would have been helpful if he had gotten some sleep on the plane.

"I, um, I graduated from MIT—" Tony starts to say, but Alfred interrupts.

"Yes, I remember reading the article." Dismissively. "I've also read your thesis. If you decide to return to academia, perhaps you can develop it further. The work is interesting, but it has no practical implications for us for at least another decade."

Tony has no good answer to that, nor to any of Alfred's precise and detailed questions establishing that Tony knows little to nothing about aeronautics, avionics, ballistics, low orbit applications, or any other business line at Stark Industries' Santa Monica campus.  Alfred sighs impatiently. "So you have no education or experience relevant to the work we do. Let us see if you have any analytical ability." Tony follows Alfred back to the whiteboard where the other two — who don't look much older than Tony — have been watching curiously. "What do you make of this?"

Tony looks. Except for that one afternoon in Karlstad, he has not used this part of his brain in over two years, and he is coming to this board almost entirely without context. Alfred's unimpressed demeanor is uncomfortably close to dad's, and Tony's heart is sinking. For one dizzying, terrifying moment the symbols mean nothing to him, as though he has lost the ability to read...

Then it all snaps into brilliant clarity, and Tony breathes a sigh of relief. "It doesn't make any sense," he says. The young guys smirk, but Tony continues, "You've obviously messed up one of the underlying functions."

One of the young guys says defensively, "You don't have the whole thing, it —"

"I don't have to have the whole thing to see you're going to be out by an order of magnitude. Here—" Without even thinking to ask permission, Tony steps forward, erases half the board with his sleeve, grabs a marker and fills the newly blank space with additional lines of equations, symbols subtly rearranged. "With the function fixed, you get something a lot more workable, as in, you won't fry the circuit." Tony steps back, considering. "But it's still pretty clunky." Tony suddenly realizes what he's doing, stops. Erasing someone else's work, taking over their white board, is inexcusably rude, and the young guy is scowling. But Alfred's eyes are narrowed with interest for the first time, and he gestures abruptly for Tony to continue.

Tony grins, turns back to the board, erases it entirely. "This, now—" and he fills the space with an entirely different, much more compact set of equations. "Fluid dynamics as applied to electron flow, no reason not to, and suddenly you get something...interesting. It even has practical application, say, narrowing on-die signaling spread." Tony caps the marker with a flourish, then has a flash of self-doubt. "That...that is what we're trying to do, right?"

"No. Not originally." Alfred's eyes are still on the whiteboard, and then he is already turning away as he instructs the other two, "Find young Mr. Stark somewhere to sit, and show him the rest of the circuit." They gape as they realize who their newest colleague is, and for what feels like the first time in three years, the hard knot in Tony's stomach loosens itself, just a little.

*

Within half an hour, Tony is set up in a data lab, sharing space with eight others, all co-op students or recent graduates, poring over the rest of the circuit with Philip and Matthew (although he doesn't learn their names until days later). By shortly after midnight, they have completely re-configured the entire analysis, paving the way for a hundred-fold improvement in transistor density.

In the days that follow, Tony is given a virtual stack of raw data that, he is told, will take about three months to analyse, but Tony is to report on his progress weekly. He takes a couple of days to write an algorithm that allows him to radically compress the time needed for analysis, and turns in the completed project within hours. He is given another project, and another, with the same results.

He starts hanging over his labmates' shoulders during his spare time, making helpful suggestions. The ones that are struggling with their projects (like Philip, like Matthew) are half-grateful, half-resentful. The others are increasingly annoyed, and one day Anna storms up to Alfred's office and says, "For god's sake, could you please give Tony _fucking_ Stark something else to do, he's bored out of his tree and he's taking it out on us."

Tony is taken aback, he likes Anna, and he isn't bored, he feels, he feels…

But he gets a memo from Alfred telling him to report to the software engineering team lead. He gets an office all to himself, is put on a graphics application project, and doesn't see his labmates anymore except in the cafeteria.

Ok. That's ok. It's all good.

*

It's a fucking disaster.

Tony is a project team member, which means he is supposed to develop some sub-sub-sub-routine for drawing trajectories for use in an air traffic mapping application, unbelievably boring. After a week of interminable planning meetings, he does it in 20 minutes and turns it in.

A day later the project lead sends it back. It doesn't conform to the specifications set and cannot be modularized to interact with the rest of the application, and also the documentation is a little lax.

Tony, in a moment of anger, fires off a reply. There is an unfortunate exchange of emails which ends with the project lead suggesting Tony might be happier on a different project.

Tony writes a trajectory drawing routine that meets all specifications given. He also embeds unrequested features allowing the trajectory lines to move in three dimensions (given an adequate display medium), to change color from green to yellow to red as they approach one another or hard boundaries such as the flight ceiling or ground level, and to be accompanied by a smiley face : ) that acquires worry lines |: ( with proximity and converts to a horrified look  : o in the face of an imminent crash. He documents it meticulously, sends it in, and waits for the memo from Alfred.

*

His participation on the ballistics portfolio begins and ends with the realization that it would involve simulating the path of projectiles through human flesh over and over. Of course Tony knows that the company makes products that kill and injure people, and he thinks he has matured since his first attempt to work for the company. But he just can't.

*

Tony's stint with the propulsion simulation team goes a little better. They incorporate his particle erosion models into their test protocol, even as they suggest to Alfred that keeping Tony on the team beyond that "would lead to nonrecuperable inefficiencies".

*

Tony is between projects, doodling on a tablet and idly thinking about germanium-76, when he is summoned to Alfred's office. Tony doesn't know if Alfred intends to commend or chastise him, but Alfred does neither. "Mr. Stane has asked me to put you on a special project. He says he has spoken of it to you already."

Tony frowns, _What project?_ Obie had returned to New York while Tony was still in the data lab, and while Obie has called once or twice since then, the conversations have been mostly personal. Then Alfred puts a stack of familiar leatherbound notebooks on the desk between them, and for a moment, Tony can't breathe.  It's not like he has _forgotten_ , but somehow he's managed not to think about it, even while surrounded by his legacy...

The moment passes and Alfred seems not to have noticed, as he is still speaking. "Your father left many unfinished projects behind. We have been able to continue some of the work, here and in the other labs, but certainly not all. We believe these notebooks contain his latest thinking. Some of these were in his home workshop, where we know he did much initial design, and some were traveling with him when he died. Have a look, tell me what you think."

Tony takes the notebooks. "Just...tell you what I think?"

"Try not to take too long." It should be a joke — Tony has probably already delivered three years of results in his three months of work, as sporadic as his projects have been — but Alfred doesn't look like he's joking, so Tony half-shrugs in acknowledgement and leaves.

*

At first, it is simply...strange.

Tony has seen these notebooks, notebooks like these, all his life. Dad was always tucking them into briefcases, carrying them to and from his workshop, leafing through them with one hand (holding a scotch in the other) in the evenings. When Tony opens one, he recognizes the neat, firm handwriting from the corrections dad used to make in Tony's notebooks.

But Tony recognizes nothing of what is written, can barely recognize dad's voice in the writing, because he never talked to Tony like that. So methodical, yet open and curious, full of wonder and wry self-deprecation. _It is day 4 and I loathe Fourier with all my heart. Today's task: see how far I can push the transform before Doppler smearing makes for catastrophic failure. Will give me approximate outer boundaries if nothing else._ Tony runs his fingers lightly over the pages, thinks how very much closer to dad these notebooks were, in every way, than he ever was.

Then it becomes puzzling.

Tony reads all the notebooks, and reads them all again. He can't understand them. The notation appears at first glance to be thorough and promising, almost complete. But sections which appear to be closely related do not actually follow from one another, documented assumptions are routinely violated, and unwarranted conclusions appear out of nowhere.

Tony is almost ready to report to Alfred that dad had actually lost it months before the fatal accident, that the notebooks are useless... But then something catches Tony's eye, and he can almost see the transition, the ghostly image of the missing middle step that makes the conclusion not just correct but _right_. But then Tony loses the ghost, and is left fitfully chasing after it for yet another sleepless night.

Finally, it is maddening.

Tony tries, he really does, he keeps a notebook with him at all times so he can flip through it while eating breakfast or waiting for someone to bring his car around at the end of the day, but the notebooks _make no sense_. He begins to spend less time trying to work through the puzzle of his dad's last words, and more time on the puzzle that is germanium, of the same family as those versatile and infinitely useful elements carbon and silicon, and in particular germanium-76, that one isotope which is theoretically unstable and radioactive but which in practice is so remarkably well-behaved...

Tony will go through all the notebooks again tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.

*

"Alfred, I need access to the prototype fabrication lab."

Alfred looks up sharply. "You've found something in your father's notebooks?"

Tony hesitates. A simple lie, a slight bending of the truth, would give him access to pretty much anything around here. "No."

Alfred looks down again, disgruntled. "No side projects."

"This is important. I—"

"You have your assignment. I need a progress report by the end of the day."

"I don't have any progress to report." Tony tries again. "You _know_ science doesn't work that way, an inventor, an explorer has to be free to go in the direction —"

Alfred doesn't look up. "If you want to return to academia to explore whatever avenues your heart desires, be my guest. Company resources are for company projects."

Tony throws up his hands in frustration. "What do I have to do to _make_ this a company project?"

"Write up a proposal and rationale, documenting the resources you need, the results you expect, how long the project will take, and the benefit to the company. The scope of the proposal will determine the level that decides on it." Alfred glances up to take in Tony's outrage. "If you cannot be bothered to fill out a form, how important can the project be?"

Tony leaves Alfred's office, fuming.

The prototype fabrication lab is a thing of beauty, underground room after underground room of supercomputers, chemical synthesis labs, foundries, machine shops, firing ranges, wind tunnels, all tucked (for both safety and security reasons) behind an unmarked set of double-locked, reinforced steel doors at the end of a utility corridor. Half an hour after leaving Alfred's office, Tony is not at all sorry that he has hacked into the company's security protocols to get access to it.

Well. Not very sorry. He tells his conscience to live with it, yes, he intends to divert company resources to a non-authorized project, which will hurt the company's bottom line in an infinitesimally small way, but as the company's largest shareholder he hereby blesses the...deviation. Never mind that now. Tony has already checked inventory records and knows where to find everything he needs.

By midnight, he has successfully synthesized amorphous germanium-76 tetroxide — a highly reflective lump of workable germanium glass, about the size of his thumb. By 3am, a combination of pressure and radiation has subtly transformed its conductive properties, rendering it, despite its density and irregular shape, as clear as water. By 8am, he has run his tests and analysed the results, and is feeling pretty damned pleased with himself.

*

Tony pops his head into Alfred's office. "You wanted to see me?" Tony isn't surprised by the summons, given that he hadn't made any effort to cover his tracks. He figures he is about to get a lecture about ignoring company procedure. "If this is about —"

Alfred looks Tony straight in the eye. "I have asked for approval to fire you."

"I...what?" Tony expected a reprimand, but _fired_...

"You have violated company security, committed theft, misappropriation—"

"It was _eight dollars' worth_ of germanium—"

"—displayed insubordination, disobedience, a general inability to take direction. Despite your considerable talents, I cannot find a team willing to take you more than once. If you were anyone else, you would no longer be an employee of Stark Industries. But of course, you are... who you are." Alfred's eyes are hooded and unreadable. "If you would be willing to resign, that would simplify things enormously."

 _Run away. Again._ Tony's throat closes and he can only shake his head.

"I thought as much." Alfred looks off to a point somewhere over Tony's shoulder. "Mr. Stane ordered that one of the  company jets be made ready to take you to New York. He would like to speak to you in person but he has some other meetings he cannot avoid right now." He looks at Tony again. "Before you leave, however, I must ask you to empty your pockets."

Tony repeats, disbelievingly.  "Empty my pockets."

Alfred says coolly,  "I cannot fire you without dispensation, but you are suspended without pay. As such, you are required to return all company property. The security cameras showed you taking something from the prototype lab, something small. Whatever it may be, it belongs to Stark Industries. Also, one of your father's notebooks was missing from your office when we went to collect them. I presume you have it. So. Your pockets."

Tony fights to keep his voice steady, despite the angry pounding of his heart, to unclench his fists. "Ok. Ok. First of all, you can't suspend me without pay, because you don't actually pay me.

"Second, what with not paying me, it's arguable you can't fire me, because you don't actually employ me. I'm just here, you can think of me being here as a _gift_ to you, a free-will offering.

"Third, right, I took some germanium, and I stole electricity, and five hours of supercomputer time. So you can prosecute and I'll make restitution, or you can sue and I'll pay damages. But this?" Tony takes the still-warm, glassy lump out of his jacket's inside pocket and holds it up. Alfred's eyes flare with…something…but he says nothing.  "This isn't germanium or electricity. It's nothing the company has ever had. It's something new, made by a non-employee carrying out a non-project, and the company can just back the hell off.

" 'Cause, fourth." Tony slips the lump back into his inside pocket, opening it wide enough to show the leather edge of a notebook before he drops it closed again. "My dad's notebooks don't belong to the company, they belonged to _him_ , and as his only heir I'm pretty sure they now belong to me. I'll be coming back for the rest of them later. Oh, and when you took them out of his house, and off his _dead body_ , that was theft. So don't be getting on your high horse." Tony turns to leave. "I'm going to go see Obie now, Alfred. Fuck you very much."

*

Tony tries to hang onto the feeling, but over the course of the five-hour flight to New York, the anger, the certainty, the _righteousness_  he had felt telling off Alfred ebbs away. Tony's anger at Alfred is layered over fear and gratitude and respect and even, maybe, incipient liking of the non-romantic kind, an appreciation, anyway, of his straight-forwardness, his lack of duplicity, the discipline of his focus. As pissed off as Tony is right now, he can't help but think maybe Alfred is right.

 _I cannot believe what a fuck-up I am_. Tony wonders how disappointed Obie is, if there is anything left for Tony to say.

*

Tony arrives at corporate headquarters in the late afternoon but still has to wait outside Obie's office for three hours, as agitated senior executives, trailed by anxious juniors carrying stacks of paper, rush in and out. Tony frowns. He remembers how pervasive the cult of busyness was during his earlier attempt to work for the company in New York, but everyone seems unusually frantic.

Finally, though, there is no one waiting except Tony, and Obie himself is holding his door open. "Hey, kiddo. Come in." Tony enters, sits in one of the two club chairs intended for guests, and Obie drops wearily into the other, closing his eyes, rubbing his brow for a moment. "I gotta say. This is lousy timing, Tony."

Tony opens his mouth to explain, or to demand that Alfred be fired, or maybe to offer to resign, he doesn't know...but he notices that Obie looks truly terrible, grey and drawn. "Obie?" he says, concerned. "What the hell's happened?"

Obie waves a hand wearily at the stack of papers on his desk, "It's...the business. The company."

Tony can't help himself. "Well, I didn't think it was your love life."

That gets him a snort. Obie contemplates Tony for a moment, then says, "The Symes Report came out today." Obie sees this means nothing to Tony. "You remember about six months back, there was a bad accident at that air force base in Oklahoma?"

Tony shakes his head. "I was still in Europe. Not...really reading a lot of newspapers."

"Yeah. Well, there was a training exercise." Obie stands, goes to his desk, picks up his drink with one hand, leafs through the thick booklet on the top of the pile with the other. "Cadets were moving missiles from one place to the other, maybe there was some jostling, anyway, there was an explosion. One dead, several injured. Plus the warhead got blown eight thousand feet into the air, thank God it came down in an empty field. There was an investigation, of course."

"And we're implicated?"

Obie looks Tony straight in the eye. "We fucked up." He tosses the report to Tony, drains his glass, goes to his sideboard to refill it while Tony reads.

After several minutes, Tony looks up. "Says here we tried to cut our costs on the contract by converting from liquid to solid propellant, then skimping on the necessary retrofit. Since when were we in the business of providing the lowest cost option?" Even as Tony asks, he realizes he knows the answer.

Obie stares into his glass. "Your dad made this company the leading edge. We were all about revolutionary, game-changing technology. After we filled the last contracts he negotiated, though, we didn't have anything else in the pipeline, and our stock price took a pounding. The last three years we've been trying to find a different niche. This report… it pretty much finishes us off." Obie tosses back the drink, then looks bleakly at Tony. "I meet with the board of directors tomorrow to fall on my sword. I'm sorry, kiddo. Looks like we're both losing our jobs." And Obie looks away.

For a moment, Tony can't speak, doesn't know what to say. It isn't right, for Obie to be leaning like that on the sideboard, head bowed. It isn't right that he was abandoned by his friend, and then by his friend's son, left to carry the burden alone. It isn't fair.

Tony stands, goes to Obie, puts his hand on Obie's shoulder. "Obie, what time are you meeting the board tomorrow?"

"Ten o'clock," Obie mumbles.

"Don't go in there without me. Ok? I have an idea." Tony's mind races. "Go home, get some sleep, meet me back here at 9am. I have to do a few things."

*

Two phone calls and one short detour later, Tony is back at the house he (sort of) grew up in. The house code is unchanged and Mimi, bless her, has left out a fresh pot of coffee, as requested. Tony is already short a night's sleep, but caffeine and adrenaline should allow him to power through one more, if necessary. Down the stairs, straight to his old workshop and the remnants of projects past…

Dummy. Dark and quiet in a corner of the room, in hibernation mode for the last three years.

Tony hesitates. He has less than 12 hours, and Dummy is still in learning mode, like a toddler, more hindrance than help. Not useful at all.

 _What the hell_.

Tony puts the coffee mug down, drops to one knee, finds Dummy's power switch. He keeps a hand on Dummy as Dummy wakes, and as lights blink on and the camera tilts at him questioningly, Tony can't help but grin. "Hey, Dummy. Yeah, I know I look a little different, it's been a while." He puts his forehead against Dummy's articulated arm for a moment. "Sorry I was gone so long." Dummy whirrs his manipulator and Tony pulls back to look in the camera again. "I have a ton of work to do and I need your help. Ok?" Whirr. "Good boy. Find my tools and lay them out. I'm going to rummage for parts."

As predicted, it does take twice as long with Dummy's involvement. Dummy insistently nudges Tony to name every tool Dummy finds, trundles over to look every time Tony tosses a potentially useful piece of scrap beside the workbench, and at one point Tony says, exasperated, "If you poke me one more time with the propellant case I swear I'm going to make you wear it." But it's ok, who needs efficiency, he's finished anyway and it isn't even dawn yet. Tony carefully packs the night's work into a padded case, pats Dummy's main housing, "See you in a few hours. No matter what happens, ok?"

Tony turns to go, but Dummy promptly starts following, wheels squeaking a little. "What, you want to walk me out?" Tony opens the door and Dummy angles his way in front of Tony, as though afraid of being left behind. "The hallway isn't really that exciting, you can't go up the stairs and dad's door is always..."

Tony stops. What used to be an always locked door is now a dark, rectangular hole in the wall.

Which makes sense. As executor, Obie would have needed to see what was in there, but dad would never have shared the key code with anyone. Tony stands there, just looking at the empty doorway until Dummy nudges him. Tony glances down, steps forward. "Dad's workshop. Want to take a look?" Tony stands just inside the threshold, reaches out to flip the light switch.

The room is a large concrete box, almost cavernous, lit by fluorescent lights. Dummy immediately enters and starts using the camera to zoom in on whatever captures Dummy's attention, Tony hesitates but finally goes in, too. His eyes track around the room, noticing little details. Two long, empty workbenches running almost the length of the room. A framed propeller, mounted on the far wall. Black marks on the wall showing where equipment had once been pushed up against it, scratch marks on the floor nearby. Tony opens a few workbench drawers, finds most of them empty, a few still containing basic tools. Blackboards on wheels, washed clean and pushed together against another wall. Just beyond them, an alcove with a heavy oak desk, an armoire and a jukebox.

Tony blinks. Before he quite realizes it, he is in front of the jukebox, peering into it. Classic glowing exterior, song titles in courier type, mostly from the fifties and sixties, as far as he can–

There is a resounding crash behind Tony and he leaps around, to find that Dummy has pulled out the workbench drawer of wrenches and is tilting a camera at the resulting mess. "Dad's tools," Tony calls out. "You better clean that up." He turns back to the jukebox. On impulse, he makes a selection, and The Shirelles' _Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow_ starts echoing hollowly through the room. Dummy immediately cocks his camera and speeds over to Tony.

"Dad's jukebox. Dad's...music." But that can't be right. Tony can't remember his father ever listening to music, can't remember ever hearing music coming from behind the closed door, can't picture him listening to The Shirelles. Dummy examines the jukebox from all angles, then moves onto the armoire, which turns out to be a liquor cabinet. "Dad's scotch." Dummy continues moving, pulls open a desk drawer, peers in to look at the contents.

"Dad's straight edge, Dad's drafting pencil. Hey..." Tony reaches past Dummy to take out a framed photo. Tony, maybe age five, in a go-cart, dad standing beside him. "Picture of me and dad. We built that, the go-cart." Tony has a hazy memory, dad's hand gently around his as Tony had struggled to use a screwdriver much too big for him. The screaming, exhilarating terror of riding the go-cart afterwards, but by then dad wasn't there, it was one of the household staff cheering from the top of the hill…

Tony puts the framed photo on the desk, looks further in the drawer, finds a folded scrap of paper. Unfolded, it's a drawing by a very young child, wobbly circle face with dot eyes and horizontal dash of a mouth, longer lines for arms and legs, no torso, many overlapping circles in red and blue crayon over one arm. On the same piece of paper but set at a slightly different angle, as though done at a different time, what looks like a hill made of numbers, 1's along the edge  and a scatter of what could be higher numbers (curvy lines that could be 3's, intersecting lines that could be 4's) in the middle. Tony opens the other drawers, but they are empty. Something big is resting on the floor, in the space between the desk and the alcove wall. When Tony pulls it out, he recognizes it as an aluminum cross-section model of Captain America's shield, one of the few projects dad had ever talked about.

Tony looks around the alcove a bit more, but there is nothing else. The Shirelles have stopped singing.  He sits at the desk, thinking. Propeller on the far wall – dad was a pilot, ok, maybe a memento. Captain America's shield – the only surprise is that it's here, not carted off to one of the labs with all the other work-related objects and equipment. (Although it is only a model, and the project is long since delivered.) A jukebox of early rock and roll. A photo with Tony, but no pictures of mom. A child's drawing.

Tony looks at the drawing again. He doesn't recognize it, but he must have been the artist, who else could it be? He decides the stick figure must be Captain America, the concentric red and blue circles the shield. As for the numbers…it dawns on Tony that it is Pascal's triangle. Or rather, it started out as Pascal's triangle, but whether three-year-old Tony copied it from a textbook or derived it himself, he slipped up in the third line and the numbers are all off after that…

 _Wait._ In his mind's eye, he sees the childishly scrawled triangle superimposed over dad's neat handwriting, line after line of subtly wrong equations… Tony takes dad's notebook out of his inside pocket, flips to that page where he kept thinking he _almost_ had it. Compares it to the drawing, does quick calculations in his head, mentally translates line by line.

So many secrets to keep. Dad had kept even his personal notes in code, a cipher extrapolated from an incorrect rendition of a well-known number pattern. Tony's unconscious must have recognized the pattern in its early steps, then rejected it as not following after all, over and over. Tony turns to another page, translates a few lines, enough to see that this code was used at least a few times in this notebook. He turns back to the first page. This one derivation had had resonance for Tony, despite being in code. It is as though dad had been working out how to ask a question, a complicated and far-reaching question about interdimensional energy, and Tony, unknowing, has discovered not _the_ answer, but at least _an_ answer, a part of an answer, using germanium-76.

Tony slowly pushes back from the desk. This is a good thing. He's found a key, one of his dad's keys. He can unlock his dad's last thoughts, give back to the company what was lost. But Tony starts to shake, to take deep shuddering breaths, trying not to cry, don't cry, stupid, useless…

He hadn't even realized he was doing it, but for just a few minutes, he had hoped that these anomalies were clues, a sign that dad might have been too busy to be with Tony much, god knows he was an important and busy man, but still, that he might have been the kind of man to smile at a photo, to listen to Buddy Holly and enjoy seeing his son's drawing of Captain America next to a model of the shield he himself had made…

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dad was not, would never have been, so stupidly sentimental. The anomalies make no sense precisely because they are not personal at all, but a way of hiding important information in plain sight. Whoever had packed up dad's notebooks had of course overlooked the child's drawing sitting next to them. The drawing itself would have meant nothing to him. There is probably something vital scribbled on the back of the photo. Maybe the jukebox contains weapons-grade plutonium.

Tony takes a few more breaths, calms enough to realize that Dummy is pressed up against his side, focusing and refocusing the camera anxiously. "It's ok. Just dealing with the fact that dad never loved me. No big deal." Tony hesitates, then says, "Do you mind just staying here with me another minute? I need to think through something." Dummy obligingly scoots around in front of Tony, under his hands, and Tony closes his eyes, gripping tight. Minutes pass. Finally, Tony says aloud, eyes still closed. "Ok. I get it. You chose this. Why you did it, whatever else it cost you, I get it. I'm trusting you on this." Tony opens his eyes, glances into the middle of the room, and says to Dummy, "Hey. Mess. Come on."

Tony goes to the pile of spilled wrenches still on the floor, puts the drawer back on its runners, starts handing wrenches to Dummy to put back in the drawer. "Come on. We have to take care of dad's things, right? They're all we have left."

*

It is 10am, and Tony is outside the company's largest boardroom, a room with its own mezzanine and windows spanning two full stories at one end. He is listening to Obie's muffled voice through the closed doors, waiting for his cue. Obie calls the meeting of the board of directors to order, then says, in his gravelly voice, "We have an addition to our agenda this morning. We will be starting with a presentation by Mr. Tony Stark." _Showtime_.

There is a murmur as Tony strides in carrying an aluminum case, faces the board, opens the case flat on the boardroom table, and starts assembling. "Gentlemen, I'd like to start with a demonstration."

_(Tony: "Everyone — the people who work for us, the people who invest in us, the people who buy from us — they all want to see the second coming of Howard Stark. Dad was all about tech, all about flash. So that's what I'm going to give them.")_

Tony is bringing to this moment everything he has ever learned from watching dad preside at fundraisers, from crashing diplomatic functions, from partying with Saudi princes. He is immaculately dressed in a smartly fitted suit, white shirt with a subtle weave, cuff links catching the light and shoes polished to a gleam (all thanks to dad's 24 hour tailor, who still has a storefront on Seventh Avenue). The model rocket gleams, too, all black and silver and white. Tony stands it on the table, pulls out a black remote. "T minus three, two, one—"

The rocket shoots up, almost faster than the eye can follow, a blinding white light where the flame should be, eerily beautiful, giving off a sound somewhere between a whistle and a whine. Just before it hits the ceiling, the light winks out and a white silk parachute pops out of the nosecone. The rocket drifts down with a fast flutter and Tony snags it out of the air, stuffs the parachute back in and snaps the nosecone shut.

"Let's do that again. Slow motion." Tony sets the rocket down, points the remote at it, and again it goes up, this time just slowly enough that everyone can see, as the rocket zips up to the ceiling, what looks like a glowing circle of glass where the rocket nozzle should be. The light is not as bright, and the whistling whine is a little quieter this time.

When the rocket parachutes down from the ceiling again, there is a babble of exclamations and murmurs and someone asks, "What the hell is that?"

Tony catches the rocket and answers while tucking in the parachute, confident and loose. "It's a proof of concept for a new proprietary technology that is going to revolutionize rocket propulsion.

"I direct your attention to the table. No scorch marks. The basis of repulsor technology is a cold plasma stream. It is stable and chemically inert, rendering it immune to catastrophe at takeoff. The technology both converts and amplifies energy from conventional sources. There's less than a teaspoon of solid propellant in the model and it's good to go up another hundred times. It means going farther on less...or faster than we've ever seen with what we have. It is scalable, can be throttled in real-time, retrofitted to existing hardware."

_("It doesn't matter what I tell them. What matters is they are convinced I can deliver."_

_"Can you deliver?"_

_Tony had frowned at Obie, "Of course I can.")_

"But you didn't come here today to look at my rocket. You gathered to talk governance. So let's do that." Tony doesn't look at Obie, but everyone else in the room does.

 _(This was the part Tony had been most nervous about. "Having new tech won't be enough. Everyone needs to see we're turning a new page. It's the only way we can go forward, to focus on a new direction." Obie had sat there, unreadable, and Tony had wondered whether it was too much to expect Obie to take it with good grace. But that almost didn't matter. "Dad's work meant more to him than anything. I don't know what he would have wanted me to do. So I'm just going to do_ everything _I can.")_

Tony disassembles the rocket and puts it back in its case while talking.  "Over the next six months, we're going to develop a suite of products based around repulsor technology. We're going to retrofit our factories, and we're going to talk to our most favoured customers about placing advance orders." He snaps the case shut. "Mr. Stane will remain interim CEO for that time, overseeing the transition."

"Then I take over." Tony's eyes sweep over the table evenly, daring one of them to say something. No one does.

"I take over the chief executive office, and Mr. Stane becomes CFO and General Manager. We'll announce the repulsor roll-out, as well as a couple of other things I have in mind for the pipeline. And with that, gentlemen, we will usher this company — dad's legacy — into a new era."

_(Obie: "Anything else?"_

_"I'm going to make Santa Monica the corporate headquarters." Tony had raised his hands defensively at Obie's frown. "We can keep financial, sales, whatever, in New York, I know that works better for the lawyers and stock analysts. But this company is going to be all about the tech, and California is where the tech is. I'm going to pack up a few last things from the house, and then I'll be in California permanently._

_"We don't need to tell the board yet, though. A lot of things are going to change, we can ease them in. Let me just start with the demo.")_

Obie declares a short break before they move onto the second item on the agenda, a directors-only deliberation. The happy hum of conversation in the room is a good sign, and Tony finally allows himself to take a deep breath, to relax the facade of arrogance and confidence. Obie walks him to the door, says quietly, "Great job, my boy."

Tony glances up at Obie. "I'm going to be standing on dad's shoulders for the rest of my life, aren't I?"

Obie says pointedly. "Don't fall off." Then, "You took the long route home, kiddo. I'm glad you made it."

Tony doesn't reply for a moment. "You know that saying, home is the place, where if you go, they have to take you?"

"Sure."

"I heard a better one. Home is the place where the people who love you are also the people who want to kill you, but there you are anyway."

Obie snorts. "Well. Welcome home anyway." Puts a hand on Tony's shoulder.

"Thanks, Obie." _Home. Home at last_.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first real story (with an actual beginning, middle AND end with some resolution, imagine that) in a fandom ever. Thank you for reading!


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